• frezik@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    2 months ago

    Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.

    From George Orwell’s 1940 review of Mein Kampf.

    https://bookmarks.reviews/george-orwells-1940-review-of-mein-kampf/

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      2 months ago

      After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.

      Goddamn.

      • frezik@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        Orwell goes hard. It’s unfortunate that he’s known for two books that people pretend they read in high school because their English teacher made them.